


quiet is the closest thing

by catarinquar



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer Arc, Episode: s04e21 Zero Sum, F/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 13:13:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16535243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catarinquar/pseuds/catarinquar
Summary: “I’m not going to break, Mulder,” she breathes. “You’re not going to break me.” He thinks he might. He thinks it would be better, still, than to never have had her this way at all.-post-zero sum. mulder just wants to take care of her.





	quiet is the closest thing

He drove her home, unlocked her door, took her coat. Pointed, _here, bedroom’s this way_ , removed her shoes, and tucked her in. Lay down right there next to her when she whispered, _stay, please_  and retreated to her striped sofa and a muted game of National Ball Whatever once her breathing evened out.

When she came sneaking out the floorboards creaked, early rehearsals of haunted house-duties, _she’s not a ghost yet,_ he wanted to yell. When she lifted the hem of his sweater, he complied. When she inched closer, he helped her with her blazer and her prim button-down like a proper gentleman, grazed the sides of her breasts, opened his mouth against her chapped lips.

When his belt buckle hit the hardwood floor with a thunk too loud for her softly lit living room, the one with the throw pillows and those rows of literary classics, medical esoterica, softcore erotica - he knows, he’s _looked_ -

When the television flickered to commercials, he choked on a breath. _She’s too small, she’ll be leaving a too large space behind when when when -_

When she fled in her stockinged feet, he followed; lured in as if they aren’t both prey.

She’s tiptoe-perching on the threshold, a skittish passerine about to take flight somewhere, all flushed chest and a twitchy flutter locked somewhere behind those ribs; fine bones, all of them. Her wrists - God, her wrists with the blue-green veins, palms turned up in invitation or a beg for charity. He doesn’t know which; weighed down by daddy’s blood money he can afford neither.

“I’m not going to break, Mulder,” she breathes. “You’re not going to break me.” He thinks he might. He thinks it would be better, still, than to never have had her this way at all. When their fingertips touch, she flinches. “You, we might have to - work up to it. It’s difficult for me to.” Fullstop, _oh, Scully_ , he thinks. “The chemo makes it. Makes it difficult to get lubricated.”

 _Lubricated_ , speaking in medicalese when she’s nervous; he wonders briefly if that’s how she talked to Ed Jerse. Doubts that Dangerous Dana had that problem with Ed Jerse. “Yes. Yeah, I know, it's no -”

Her breath hitches, “you know?”

“I know every -” everything, all of it, except how to save her, “I’ve been reading. I’ve done my reading, the side-effects, I’m -” in case she needed him to take care of her; yes, he knows everything about the easy bruises, about saltines and bananas and chicken noodle soup and how long someone weighing ninte-five pounds soaking wet should wait before they can pop another double-dose of Advil. “I was going to take care of you, Scully.”

“Oh. Oh, Mulder…”

So he knows about _decrease of vaginal lubrication_ , too, and of course he’s thought about Scully, about - about taking care of that for her. He doesn’t know whether comfort sex is encouraged; hasn’t found anything about that in the pamphlets, but this isn’t like that, is it. They’re two people afraid to love each other because one’s dying and the other - the other maybe hasn’t ever really learned. He’s learned how to take care good of a woman, though. If Phoebe did one thing it was to tame and teach her Fox well; he knows how to worship a woman’s body, he - _Scully -_

He takes her hand, guides her backwards and down on the bed, _on your back, Scully, please_ , shoulders down, too, and stay down, _relax._  Those shoulders, her clavicles, her ribs - the black lace, Scully, where’d it come from, why’s it there - the hollow plane of her stomach and those sharp hip bones -

There is so little of her, he has to have all of her. Peels off slacks and hose and practical cotton panties, kisses all of her. “I’m going to take care of you like this, okay?”

“Yes. You… please, yes.”

Arms wrapped around her thighs, he threads his fingers with hers over her abdomen, grounding her rolling hips and keeping her from making a nest of his hair as he nuzzles through soft curls and heat.

For all her silents _oh’s_ , her quivering and her bird-bones: she comes undone with a swallowed whimper, stretching and arching like a cat, and he doesn’t know this creature. There’s a colourful serpent travelling in circles at the small of her back, he remembers, right where his hand always wants to hover.

She escapes his grip, reaches and drags him up by his jaw. “Up, Mul’ler. I want -” still breathless, she works his jeans and boxers down, wraps her hand around him, _Jesus, Scully_. Her nails are chipped, subtle pink polish peeling off, how many autopsies since her last manicure? He must owe her one, must owe her the dry-cleaning, too - “please, I want you in me.”

He can barely taste her on his lips, but crawling over her he can do as he’s told, he can -

He can’t, there’s more moisture in her breath against his cheek than there is between her legs, she’s so tense -

“Scully, I’m hurting you.”

She clenches _hard_ around the head of his cock, “no,” though the sheen of sweat between her furrowed brows betrays her. She locks her ankles over his tailbone, trapping him, “ _no_ , you stay here, we just - please, just slowly, just -” wriggles and kisses him, “like this,” and again, deep space exploration for the extraordinarily tactile.

Pretty as that lacy bra is, it’s got to go. She arches for him so he can reach the clasp, so he can suck her rosy nipples. She’s relaxing, he’s leaking hot and sticky; with a languid roll of hips, they make it work.

She is - the tightest thing, digging her claws in and panting into his mouth, into the crook of his shoulder; those little _oh’s_ and a few _Mulder-_ like whimpers. Holding her breath every time she ripples around him in barely-there orgasms - but he counts three, and it’s so easy. So easy, this.

“Scully,” he whispers when he comes. “ _God, Scully, Scully, Scully -”_

**Author's Note:**

> say hi on [tumblr](https://catarinquar.tumblr.com)!


End file.
